Canada Unveils Law for Affordable Living, More Homes, Jobs

Today, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, tabled the Notice of Ways and Means Motionto introduce the Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023.

This legislation, which delivers on key measures from the 2023 Fall Economic Statement, advances the government's economic plan to make life more affordable, build more homes, faster, and build an economy that works for everyone.

Measures to stabilize prices and make life more affordable, which would:

• Modernize competition in Canada to help stabilize prices by amending the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, and building on changes proposed in Bill C-56, which will:
  • Support Canadians right to repair by preventing manufacturers from refusing to provide the means of repair of devices and products in an anti-competitive manner;
  • Further modernize merger reviews;
  • Enhance protections for consumers, workers, and the environment, including improving the focus on worker impacts in competition analysis;
  • Empower the Commissioner of Competition to review and crack down on a wide selection of anti-competitive collaborations; and,
  • Broaden the reach of the law by enabling more private parties to bring cases before the Competition Tribunal and receive payment if they are successful.
• Make mental health services more affordable by removing the GST/HST on psychotherapy and counselling therapy services.
• Support adoptive parents, including surrogate parents, by introducing a 15-week shareable Employment Insurance adoption benefit, and ensuring that workers in federally-regulated sectors have job protection while receiving the new benefit.
• Create a new paid leave for federally-regulated workers to support families who experience pregnancy loss.
• Develop a tobacco cost recovery framework, which will increase the tobacco industry's accountability by ensuring tobacco companies contribute to the government's costs of responding to the tobacco epidemic, and allow Health Canada to introduce new compliance and enforcement tools.
• Double the rural top-up on the pollution price rebate, from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, to support Canadians in small and rural communities who face higher energy costs.

Measures to help build more homes, faster, which would:

• Build more rental housing by removing the GST on new rental home construction for co-operative housing corporations that provide long-term rental accommodation.
• Establish the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities (currently Infrastructure Canada) to clarify the department's powers, duties, and functions as the federal lead for improving housing outcomes and enhancing public infrastructure.

Measures to create jobs, help businesses grow, and build an economy that works for everyone, which would:

• Deliver the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage investment tax credit, which if passed by Parliament will enter into law, to help grow the economy and create great jobs for Canadians and reduce emissions.
• Deliver the Clean Technology investment tax credit, which if passed by Parliament will enter into law, to help grow the economy and create great jobs for Canadians and reduce emissions.
• Introduce labour requirements to ensure Canadian workers benefit from Canada's clean economy investment tax credits, which will require businesses to pay prevailing union wages and provide apprenticeship training opportunities in order to receive the maximum credit rate for the Clean Technology; Clean Hydrogen; Clean Electricity; and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage investment tax credits.
• Establish the stand-alone Canada Water Agency to strengthen sustainable and coordinated freshwater management across Canada.
• Allow for the implementation of the Digital Services Tax to protect Canadians by ensuring that digital companies pay their fair share of taxes in the absence of timely implementation of an international, multilateral system.